Abington family channeling grief of teen’s suicide into a cause

They are holding their first golf tournament and gala Sept. 21 and hope to use the funds to raise awareness of the causes and prevention of teen suicide with the goal to save one life.

By Erin Shannon

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By Erin Shannon

Posted Sep. 12, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 12, 2013 at 12:10 PM

By Erin Shannon

Posted Sep. 12, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 12, 2013 at 12:10 PM

ABINGTON

» Social News

Makayla Guerriero asked her grandmother once, “What is heaven like?” Her grandmother, Trisha, told her what she told her Sunday School students 30 years ago.

“It’s like getting off a plane at Logan Airport and all the people you ever knew and loved are there waiting for you,” she said. “That’s all I could think to tell her because no one has ever come back to tell us what it’s really like.”

On Nov. 15, Makayla, a beautiful, vivacious, 15-year-old sophomore at Abington High School, took her own life.

Her family says she wasn’t bullied and didn’t have a drug or alcohol problem. She was sad, they say, and never the same after a friend took his own life two years earlier.

She left her family a note that day and told them that she thought heaven would be better than her life but that she loved them “F&A” – forever and always.

“She was wrong,” said Trisha Guerriero, the grandmother who shared a special bond with Makayla, whom she calls her angel. “Makayla was wrong about heaven because all the people she loves are here.”

Now Makayla’s family, spearheaded by her mother, Kellie, have started the Makayla Guerriero Memorial Fund in her honor.

They are holding their first golf tournament and gala this weekend and hope to use the funds to raise awareness of the causes of teen suicide.

Their goal – save one life.

Was she getting better?

Makayla was fiesty and full of attitude, her family says.

She made people laugh. She pulled the best April Fools pranks. She fought over clothes and eyeliner with her sisters. She loved sports. She would get so excited to tell a story she couldn’t finish, her family said.

Underneath all of that, however, was a deep sadness.

Makayla changed after a close friend took his own life while they were in middle school, her father, Tim, said.

In her room, she carved his initials into the wood on her bed and wrote it down and hung it on the walls, he said.

Then, in April 2012, Makayla attempted suicide, and then called her best friend Maggie Coehlo. Maggie called Makayla’s dad right away, and the two were able to save her, said Tim.

After the attempt, she started seeing a therapist.

“We thought she was getting better,” said her father. “We thought that therapy was helping. She went every week and wasn’t skipping it.”

Makayla was inseparable from her best friend, Coehlo.

“We were like sisters,” said Maggie, who gathered with Makayla’s family recently to talk about her friend, but was overwhelmed and she couldn’t finish this thought.

Page 2 of 3 - The two were together all the time, every day. Whatever Maggie’s family did, Makayla was included. But even Maggie said she couldn’t tell what was going on inside Makayla, and what led her to suicide on Nov. 15.

“I had no idea – she didn’t act any differently,” said Maggie. “She didn’t tell me this time.”

The ‘worst’ phone call

On her final day, Makayla called her grandmother and asked to be picked up from school because she had a migraine headache. That night she reached out to all her friends, and tweeted that she was sorry that she had been mean to her parents recently.

And then she wrote a note.

In the notes application on her iPhone, Makayla wrote goodbye to her family and friends. She took a screen shot of the note and then took the password off her phone so her family could find it, they said.

Makayla’s mother found her in her room the next morning.

“At 6:20 a.m., we received the worst phone call of her life,” said Dick Geurriero, Makayla’s grandfather. “To this day, we still miss her and do not know and cannot imagine why she committed suicide and why would someone with all that going for her would think heaven would be better than life. It still hurts as much as it did on Nov. 15.”

“Everybody lost a piece of us that day because of all the love she gave,” said Tim.

Her sisters cried and laughed as they talked about her but there is still anger in their voices.

“It sucks to want to see someone and having to look at pictures instead,” said Heather, 22, the oldest of three sisters.

“It sucks that one day we’re going to have kids and tell them about their amazing aunt but they’re not going to be able to meet her,” said Amanda, the youngest at 15.

‘I’m not ashamed’

The family is channeling the grief of losing Makayla into fundraising to honor her, they said.

For Kellie, Makayla’s mother, it has become her mission.

Through the Makayla Guerriero fund, they want to reach out to high school and middle schools in the area and teach parents and students that suicide is not the answer, and that if it can happen to Makayla, it can happen to anyone.

Their first big fundraiser will be a golf tournament Saturday, Sept. 21, at the Ridder Country Club, 390 Oak St., East Bridgewater.

Makayla’s fund will also be used to honor one of her loves – playing sports.

The fund will help pay for equipment and fees for one student each season who would not otherwise be able to afford to play. Students from Abington, Rockland, Weymouth, East Bridgewater and South Shore Vocational – where Makayla had friends – will be eligible.

Page 3 of 3 - Makayla’s mother hopes that through the tournament, and other events to remember her daughter, people will find the strength to not just acknowledge what happened to Makayla, but to talk openly about it.

“Everyone tries to hush hush suicide,” said Kellie. “It’s nothing you can hush hush. It happens all the time. I’m not ashamed of my daughter, I’m not going to hide. If you hide it and keep it inside, it’s going to continue.”